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Last Wednesday I heard from Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga, of the UP-School of Health Sciences, Palo, Leyte: "The pomp of the Leyte landing commemoration a few weeks from now is almost a foregone conclusion. My reference (in another article elsewhere) to the Balangiga bells was largely intended to remind our people about a more vicious but forgotten war that cost the lives of more Leyteños and Samareños than any other conflict in our local history. I hope this will be remembered long after the Leyte landing hoopla shall have died. "Kindly extend my regards to Felipe Remollo, your partner in the defense of Ruffa, et al. He is a friend from way back in our Silliman Men's Glee Club days. "More power to you and your 'crusades,' especially the 'unpopular ones'." Prof. Borrinaga and I have shared for some time a concern about the bells of Balangiga. How fitting if a concrete part of the Leyte rites could be the long overdue return of the bells and the cannon now sitting in an honored place in Fort Warren, just out of charming Cheyenne. Go there, young man, look at the bells, look at the inscription, and see if you can be so insensitive as not to feel something surging within you, close to inspiring you to organize a commando raid to return them where they belong. Why do the Americans return relics elsewhere, such as an ancient bell they got in World War II in Japan as combat booty? A replica can always be made. Japan may get what it wants as a reflection of the power situation. Still the Americans can be appealed to simply because we can say, in Kennedyesque fashion, it is right. Maybe when President Bill Clinton comes a-visiting in November, he can vow I SHALL RETURN - the Bells of Balangiga. It is a possible electrifying talking point, if he can pronounce the word. It is time some focus were applied to the enterprise. Many people off and on have worked on it but we have no idea where the effort is now. Remembrance of things past enables us to have a sense of where we are and should be going. The bells, still intact, can toll to remind us that there are proud moments in out wretched past, when our people, united, fought for honor and did not behave like a circular firing squad. There may not be too many of them but such a one was one Sunday morning in September 93 years ago, in a place that remains largely inaccessible today and whose name does not exactly fall trippingly from the tongue. There was dubious scuttlebutt that during the martial law years, an American senator who later served as America's ambassador to Japan characterized us as a nation of forty million cowards and one SOB (and one B, I used to add then). But there are really times in our history as survivors when we tell ourselves that like a ship which Aquinas said had for its purpose, nature and essence, sailing in the dangerous seas, we must venture out and dare, and not remain safe in a harbor forever. A man must live (sure, but as Dr. Johnson would say, he did not really see the necessity). But, from time to time enough Filipinos agree on what truly matters and we have our Balangigas and EDSAs, when we hear the footsteps of history. Oct. 20 in Leyte should be marked aptly, but beyond the rites, some substantive things need attending and not be consigned to the back burner of our centennial agenda. Let freedom ring once more from those bells, back in Balangiga where they belong, to punctuate America's generosity of spirit and the gallantry of our forebears, and complete the healing.
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